How Art Transformed A Remote Japanese Island

Featured on npr.org

Art can enlighten, soothe, challenge and provoke. Sometimes it can transform a community.

Case in point: a 5.5-square-mile island called Naoshima in Japan's Seto Inland Sea.

Once upon a time, the biggest employer on Naoshima was a Mitsubishi metals processing plant. Actually, it's still the biggest employer, just not nearly as big as it once was.

Blame automation. The population of the island has dropped from around 8,000 in the 1950s and 1960s to a little over 3,000 now.

In Japan, this is not that strange. Populations of small towns are declining all over the country. Some towns are disappearing altogether. The reasons are a combination of the country's overall shrinking population and an increase in the number of people moving from rural areas to big cities.

Naoshima might have been headed for the same relentless decline.

Enter Benesse Holdings, an education and publishing conglomerate based in the nearby city of Okayama. Its best-known brand is Berlitz, the language school company. Benesse's other claim to fame is its world-class modern art collection, including paintings by Claude Monet, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol, as well as many Japanese artists less famous in the U.S.

The former head of Benesse Holdings, Soichiro Fukutake, wanted a special home for the collection, someplace where it would have a local impact and could also be shared with the wider world.

So, nearly 30 years ago, Benesse bought a big hunk of land on Naoshima's south side. It hired world-famous architect Tadao Ando, and over the next two decades, he designed museums and adjacent luxury lodgings. The buildings follow the natural contours of the landscape. One museum is mostly underground, with open courtyards and skylights bringing in natural light.

And if you build it, they will come. This year, Naoshima's triennial arts festival is expected to attract at least 800,000 tourists to the island.

"Now that we have tourists and a very active tourist industry, some people have moved here to open shops on our island," says Naoshima Mayor Michiru Hamanaka. "Last year, we even saw a little bit of a rise in the population."

Masaaki Yamagishi, 38, is one of the island's new shop owners. His place, Shimacoya, is part cafe, part bookstore, part campground and part community center, where neighbors gather to learn English or watch movies.

Yamagishi first came to Naoshima from Tokyo as an art tourist. "I was so struck by the kindness of the people and fell in love with the whole island," he says. "And I thought, 'What a wonderful place to be.' "

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